BV 
5085 


MYSTICISM  AND  IDEALISM 


J.  LOEWENBERG 


[Reprint  from  the  University  of  California  Chronicle,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1] 


MYSTICISM  AND  IDEALISM"^ 


J.    LOEWENBERG 


It  requires  not  a  little  temerity  to  approach  the  subject 
of  mysticism.  The  topic  is  so  complex,  so  vast,  so  elusive. 
It  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  say  anything  with  which 
friend  or  foe  of  mysticism  would  not  heartily  disagree. 
Whatever  opinion  one  may  hold  of  it,  one  is  sure  to  be 
told  that  one  has  misunderstood  it.  If  he  confesses  to 
being  alien  to  the  mystic  temperament,  his  right  to  speak 
of  it  is  justly  challenged,  and  if  he  is  personally  intimate 
with  the  mystic  experience  its  ineffable  character  lends 
itself  to  no  intelligible  discourse.  Whether  inside  or  out- 
side the  charmed  circle,  speech  seems  equally  ineffectual. 
With  regard  to  death  we  are  in  the  same  predicament. 
While  we  are  still  living,  our  indirect  opinions  of  it  can 
lay  claim  to  little  validity,  and  once  we  are  dead  we  do 
not  talk.  But  just  as  we  cannot,  as  intelligent  beings, 
renounce  the  right  to  endeavor,  however  unsuccessfully,  to 
penetrate  the  mystery  of  death,  to  interpret  its  meaning,  to 
grasp  its  significance,  so  in  the  case  of  mysticism  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  refrain  from  the  attempt  to  understand, 
albeit  imperfectly,  a  spiritual  phenomenon  which  has  deep- 
ened and  enriched  the  inner  life  of  the  race  and  without 
which  its  religions  and  its  arts  would  have  remained  lament- 
ably impoverished. 


*  An  address  before  the  Philosophical  Union  of  the  University 
of  California,  December  10,  1915. 


;i2757« 


The  analogy  between  mysticism  and  death,  however,  is 
not  altogether  perfect,  for  the  mystics,  unlike  the  dead, 
speak  and  act,  although  their  words  and  practices  have, 
to  the  uninitiated,  little  meaning,  little  relevancy.  The 
uninitiated  find  the  mystic  utterances  so  unfathomable  that 
for  an  appreciation  of  them  they,  for  the  most  part,  depend 
upon  the  numerous  interpretations  of  mysticism  undertaken 
from  so  many  angles,  such  as  the  psychological,  patho- 
logical, religious,  aesthetic,  philosophical.  The  result  is 
that  most  information  concerning  mysticism  is,  at  the  best, 
third  hand.  Is  it  a  wonder,  then,  that  ' '  doctors  disagree ' ' 
and  that  the  prevalent  opinions  about  what  constitutes 
mysticism  are  so  numerous,  conflicting,  and  often  far  from 
enlightening  ? 

It  is  fortunate  that,  in  our  interpretation  of  mysticism, 
we  are  able,  in  a  large  measure,  to  follow  the  guidance  of 
Professor  Hocking's  profound  book,  The  Meaning  of  God 
in  Human  Experience.  In  sincerity,  sympathy,  and  sanity 
of  judgment,  few  accounts  of  mysticism  can  compare  with 
his.  Although  Part  V  of  Mr.  Hocking's  work  forms  the 
general  background  of  this  paper,  I  have  essayed  no  exposi- 
tion of  our  author's  views.  To  expound  him  with  hhv 
degree  of  adequacy  is  a  task  from  which  many  men  more 
enterprising  than  myself  might  well  shrink.  The  book  is 
so  unique  in  style  and  composition  that  it  admits  of  nu 
summary  restatement.  Any  attempt  at  a  precise  restate- 
ment of  Mr.  Hocking's  views  would  be  sure  to  fail  because 
of  his  method.  He  unites  so  intimately  lyrical  and  reflec- 
tive qualities  that  the  reader  is  often  at  a  loss  to  tell  what 
the  author  sets  forth  as  personal  conviction  due  to  solitary 
meditation  and  what  as  argument  claiming  objective  valid- 
ity. But  the  reader  without  attending  to  precision  or 
exactness  soon  yields  to  the  spell  of  Mr.  Hocking's  seduc- 
tive style  and  ere  long  finds  himself  sharing  the  author's 
mood.  And  if  a  work  of  art  may  be  judged  by  the 
genuine  mood  it  creates  and  sustains.  The  Meaning  of  God 
in  Human  Experience,  besides  being  eminently  profound, 


has  also  the  merits  of  an  artistic  creation.  As  one  reads 
it  the  appreciation  of  being  admitted  to  the  author's  inti- 
mate meditations  makes  one  so  sensitive  that  to  disturb 
their  continuity  and  lyrical  charm  by  interposing  questions 
and  doubts  would  seem  nothing  short  of  rude  pedantry. 
Please  do  not  ask  me  therefore  to  give  you  a  literal  review 
or  synopsis  of  his  discussion  of  mysticism.  I  must  pre- 
suppose a  knowledge  of  the  text  and,  using  it  as  background, 
deal  with  the  whole  topic  in  my  own  way.  Measuring 
mysticism  by  a  frankly  rationalistic  standard,  you  must, 
of  course,  not  be  surprised  to  find  my  attitude  towards  it 
rather  critical.  I  am  second  to  none  in  profound  apprecia- 
tion of  the  supreme  value  of  the  mystic  mood  for  religion 
and  art  and  life  generally,  but  here  I  must  assess  its  strictly 
philosophic  worth  and  significance,_  and  its  strictly  philo- 
sophic v.orth  and  significance  we  shall  find  to  lie  in  its 
decidedly  non-mystical  character.  So  without  further 
apologies,  but  with  fear  and  trembling,  let  me  address 
myself  to  my  task. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  word  "mysticism"  should  have 
become  a  name  to  cover  such  a  variety  of  things.  As  Evelyn  ^/^ 
Underhill,  perhaps  the  most  modern  interpreter  of  mysti- 
cism, says,  "a  word  which  is  impartially  applied  to  the 
performances  of  mediums  and  the  ecstasies  of  the  saints, 
to  '  menticulture '  and  sorcery,  dreamy  poetry  and  medieval 
art,  to  prayer  and  palmistry,  the  doctrinal  excesses  of 
Gnosticism  and  the  tepid  speculations  of  the  Cambridge 
Platonists  ....  soon  ceases  to  have  a  useful  meaning. '  '^ 
Recent  writers  have  endeavored  to  purge  mysticism  from 
all  these  accidental  associations  and  to  fix  its  essential 
meaning  by  declaring  it  to  be  a  way  of  intense  or  enhanced 
living.  So  Miss  Underhill  characterizes  it  as  "an  organic 
life  process,  a  something  which  the  whole  self  does  ....  a 
definite  state  or  form  of  an  enhanced  life."^  Delacroix 
interprets  it  in  the  same  way.    Mysticism  for  him  is  "  a  new 


1  Mysticism,  London,  1910,  p. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  96. 


level  of  life  power,"  "an  organizing  power,"  "a  higher 
variation  of  life."  Similarly,  Rufus  M.  Jones,  who  s];eaks 
of  the  mystical  experience  as  "a  unifying,  fusing,  inten- 
sifying inward  event.  "^  Hocking,  too,  emphasizes  the  life 
of  the  mystic  rather  that  his  teaching.  "  Mj^sticism, "  he 
says,  "we  shall  define,  not  by  its  doctrine  but  by  its  deed. 
....  It  is  a  way  of  dealing  with  God  ....  affecting  first  the 
mystic's  being  and  then  his  thinking."* 

Mysticism,  as  Professor  Hocking  further  interprets  it, 
is  not  only  a  life-enhancing  and  life-heightening  power, 
but  is  a  universally  human  attitude  shared  by  some  individ- 
uals at  rare  intervals  and  by  other  individuals  more  fre- 
quently. The  most  ^ential  elements  of  the  mystic 's  attitude 
Hocking  finds  in  common  worship.  Indeed,  "mysticism 
and  common  worship,"  so  he  asserts,  "do  stand  or  faU 
together."^  The  mystic  impulse  should  thus  not  be  looked 
upon  as  a  matter  of  special  temperament.  "There  are 
mystics  in  all  temperaments,"  Hocking  continues,  "the 
spiritual  ambition  of  the  mystic  is  the  prerogative  of  no 
one  particular  type  of  human  nature."''  "Wherever  one  finds 
worship,  there  one  finds  mysticism.  The  difference  between 
the  common  worshiper  and  the  traditional  mystic  would 
then  seem  to  be  one  of  degree :  the  latter 's  life  work  con- 
sists in  what  to  the  former  is  but  a  passing  mood.  The 
insatiable  hunger  for  the  immediate  contemplation  of  ab- 
solute reality  makes  of  the  individual  who  has  such  hunger 
a  perpetual  worshiper.  The  longing  for  coming  face  to  face 
with  the  eternal  and  innermost  being  of  things,  sporadic 
and  diffused  in  all  human  beings,  is  permanent  and  special- 
ized in  the  mystic.  Those,  then,  in  whom  the  will  to  worship 
is  the  dominant  and  ruling  passion — "the  specialists  in 


3  ' '  Mysticism  in  Present-Day  Eeligion, ' '  Harvard  Theological 
Beview  for  April,  1915.  The  above  citations  from  Delacroix  are 
taken  from  this  article. 

4  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  New  Haven,  London 
and  Oxford,  1912,  p.  355. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  356, 

6  Ibid.,  p.  361, 


worship ' ' — are,  according  to  Hocking,  the  mystics  by  birth, 
the  mystics  of  genius,  the  mystics  by  profession. 

What  is  more  precisely  the  art  of  worship?  Hocking 
describes  it  as  "a  spontaneous  impulse  for  spiritual  self- 
preservation  ....  for  the  ultimate  judgment  of  life  and 
for  the  renewal  of  the  worth  of  life."^  The  one  who  is 
engaged  in  the  act  of  worship — intermittently  or  perman- 
ently— fixes  his  attention  upon  the  higher  and  spiritual  i 
values  of  life,  seeks  these  values  in  a  realm  other  than  the  / 
ordinary  world  he  lives  in,  and  derives  from  this  higher  I 
level  the  meaning  and  the  worth  of  his  very  existence. 
Through  his  act  of  worship,  the  worshiper  endeavors  to 
establish  a  spiritual  relation  with  a  higher  level  of  life, 
and  this  relation,  evanescent  in  its  effect  in  the  rare  wor- 
shiper, is  sustained  in  the  typical  mystic.  But  this  relation 
— the  final  aim  of  worship — whether  evanescent  or  sus- 
tained, has  always  been  assumed  to  be  of  a  peculiar  nature. 
» It  is  not  an  intellectual  relation.  It  is  rather  an  experience 
'  'touched  with  emotion,'  a  personal  passion,  an  immediate 
•  communion,  which,  like  all  immediate  and  emotional  experi- 
ences, cannot  be  described  in  general  terms  to  those  who 
have  not  had  such  experiences.  This  experience  is  by  all- 
mystics  of  all  ages  declared  to  be  essentially  ineffable,  and 
altogether  too  much  has  been  made  of  the  ineffable  character 
of  the  mystic  experience,  which,  perhaps,  more  than  any- 
thing else,  has  contributed  to  envelop  it  in  a  shroud  of 
mystery.  The  mystic  experience  is  not  mysterious  because  ^ 
ineffable.  It  shares  ineffableness  with  all  affective  and^ 
sensational  experience,  A  toothache  and  the  sensation  of 
a  color  are  not  mysterious,  yet  they  are  as  ineffable  as  the 
'mystic  union'  with  God.  He  who  has  never  felt  a  tooth- 
ache, he  who  is  color-blind,  and  he  who  has  never  shared 
the  mystic  impulse — to  him  all  these  experiences  are  equally 
incommunicable. 

The  approach  to  God  exemplified  in  every  act  of  worship 
is,  then,  the  peculiar  mystic  approach.     In  its  uniqueness 
7  Ibid.,  p.  366, 


and  immediacy  and  ineffableness,  this  approach,  when  its 
consummation— the  union  with -the  Absolute — is  reached, 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  passion,  but  is  strangely  at  vari- 

•  ance  with  the  way  of  reflection.  Reflection  is  communicable, 
discursive,  articulate,  and  mysticism  has,  therefore,  always 
displayed  a  marked  hostility  towards  reflective  thought,  i 
The  well-known  mystical  saying,  "Believe  not  those  prat- 
tlers who  boast  that  they  know  God.  Who  knows  him — is 
silent,"®  pithily  expresses  the  anti-intell^ctualism  of  the 
mystic.  Miss  Underbill  emphasizes  the  contrast  between 
the  mystic  and  the  philosopher  thus:  "Where  the  philos-  f 
opher  guesses  and  argues,  the  mystic  lives  and  looks ;  and  i 
speaks  consequently  the  disconcerting  language  of  first- 
hand experience,  not  the  neat  dialectic  of  the  schools. 
Hence,  whilst  the  Absolute  of  the  metaphysicians  remains 
a  diagram — impersonal  and  unattainable — the  Absolute  of 
the  mystic  is  lovable,  attainable,  alive.""  Upon  closer 
scrutiny  the  contra.st  between  reflection  and  worship  dis--t 
closes  itself  to  be  the  ancient  and  the  modern  conflict 
between  mediacy  and  immediacy,  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice, between  abstract  and  concrete  experience,  between 
discursive  and  intuitive  knowledge,  between  argument  and 
vision,  between  thought  and  deed,  between  reasoning  and 
living.  Directly  and  concretely  and  practically — through  , 
the  worshipful  deed  and  through  the  worshipful  life — the 
mystic  claims  that  he  ultimately  rises  to  a  higher  level  of 
existence  and  there  attains  the  vision  and  the  certainty  of 
an  Absolute  Reality.  The  thinker,  on  the  other  hand,  seems 
to  the  mystic  to  offer  nothing  but  sterile  principles,  useless 
abstractions,  and  lifeless  theories.     "We  come  to  you  not 

'  as  thinkers,  but  as  doers" — so  Evelyn  Underbill  interprets 
the  message  of  the  mystics. 

In  the  preference  for  "doing"  to  "thinking,"  and  in 
the  sundering  of  practice  from  theory,  the  mystic  reveals 


8  Quoted  from  J.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  New  York, 
1912,  vol.  I,  p.  148. 

9  Mysticism,  p.  28. 


himself,  curiously  enough,  as  the  ally  of  cormnon  sense, 
strange  and  weird  though  the  mystic's  particular  doings 
and  practices  may  appear  to  it.  To  pronounce  contempt  for 
abstractions  and  to  stigmatize  theory  as  useless  belongs  to 
the  very  prerogative  of  a  so-called  '  practical '  and  common- 
sense  point  of  view.^°  Mysticism  and  common  sense,  intent 
upon  the  practically  significant  deeds  to  which  life  should 
be  devoted',  are  at  one  in  rejecting  philosophic  speculation 
as  abstract,  barren  and  useless.  "Why  speculate?  To  spec- 
ulate upon  life  seems  a  waste  of  the  time  that  should  be 
spent  in  living;  to  think  upon  the  world  threatens  to  imperil 
one's  chances  for  doing  something  in  it.  Only  mysticism 
is  more  definite  in  its  pronouncements  regarding  the  kind 
of  practical  life  which  has  supreme  value.  Common  sense, 
on  the  other  hand,  beyond  a  vague  counsel  to  be  practical, 
is  reticent  about  both  the  meaning  of  the  practical  life  and 
how  best  to  live  it. 

What  both  common  sense  and  mysticism  fail  to  appre- 
ciate, however,  is  the  theoretical  implications  of  their  prac- 
tical attitudes.  The  question  "What  is  practical?"  is 
itself  a  theoretical  question.  To  walk  on  one's  head,  for 
instance,  is  far  from  being  a  practical  activity,  yet  its 
non-practicality  can  only  be  exhibited  by  means  of  a  well 
defined  theory  of  life  with  which  walking  on  one's  head  is 
incompatible.  Behind  all  practical  admonitions  lies  con- 
cealed a  theory.  The  reason  why  one  should  live  in  con- 
formity either  with  the  Golden  Rule  or  with  the  Categorical 
Imperative  or  with  the  dictates  of  common  sense  or  with  the 
promptings  of  one's  mystic  impulse  is  because  the  lest  or^ 
the  right  kind  of  life  is  thus  attained.  But  what  the  best 
or  the  right  kind  of  life  is  is  a  matter  of  controversy  and 
can  be  decided  on  theoretical  grounds  only.    In  vain,  then, 


^  10  The  practical  man's  negative  attitude  towards  theory  often 
expresses  itself  in  an  amusing  fashion.  Thus,  President  Wilson's 
nomination  was  for  a  long  time  opposed  by  many  politicians  who 
seriously  questioned  the  practical  efficacy  of  a  mere  'theorist,'  a 
mere  'professor,'  and  "Professor  Wilson"  became  a  derogatory 
epithet  which  many  newspapers  then  adopted. 


10 

does  one  attempt  to  evade  theory.    The  practical  derives  its 
very  practical  significance  from  being  consonant  with  a 

•certain  implied  theory.    Indeed,  by  practical  can  be  meant 

•  nothing  else  than  what  furthers  a  certain  end  or  fulfills  a 
certain  purpose  regarded  as  valuable.  But  the  value  of 
the  end  in  question  must  be  justified.  No  end  has  axiomatic 
value — not  even  life  itself.     And  the  justification  of  any 

,  value  will  be  found  to  involve  a  complete  theory  of  life  and 
of  the  world.  Of  mysticism  this  is  particularly  true.  In 
extolling  a  practical  and  exalted  life  of  worship  as  sup- 
remely valuable,  mysticism  is  moved  by  motives  which  are 
theoretical  as  they  are  passionate.  The  value  of  worship 
is  for  the  mystic  not  merely  subjective.  To  be  sure,  worship 
and  its  concomitant  results  bring  the  individual  serenity 
and  an  inward  peace  that  passeth  understanding,  but  the 
niaanjiis,  and  value  of  this  subjective  state  is  derived,  not 
from  the  experience  itself  which  the  mystic  obtains  in 
worship,  but  from  the  object  which  is  discovered  and  ap- 
propriated at  thefinal  stage  of  the  mystic's  worshipful' 
quest.  The  supreme  value  and  validity  of  the  mystic 
experience  is,  after  all,  cognitive.  Worship  surpasses  all 
else  in  value,  because  it  finally'  institutes  an  immediate 
acquaintance  with  the  deepest  reality,  with  the  Absolute, 
with  God.  Did  not  the  mystic  experience  terminate  in 
such  cognition,  worship  would  be  devoid  of  all  worth  and 
significance. '  But  to  confer  upon  worship  a 'supreme  worth 
and  validity  because  by  its  means  reality  ^is  discoverable 
is  to  hold  a  certain  view  or  theory  of  reality .■'  Reality  must 
be  of  such  a  nature  as  to  conform  to  the  mystic  insight, 
and,  which  is  more  important,  to  the  mystic  insight  alone. 
It  is  because  reality  is  of  a  certain  spiritual  structure  that 
to  its  discovery  there  leads  but  one  path,  namely,  the  mystic 
one.  Were  reality  of  a  different  texture — a  fabric  of  ?<  > 
and  molecules,  for  example — the  mystic  vision  might  •—  ** 
possess  the  value  of  an  emotional  experience,  but  Cwum 
scarcely  claim  objective  validity.    It  is  this  claim  to  objec- 

X  tive  validity  which  commits  the  mystic  to  a  theory  of  the 
universe,   in  the  light   of  which   the  mystic   life   and   its 


strange  practices  become  full  of  philosophic  meaning  and 
import. 

The  mystic's  negative  attitude  toward  other  forms  of 
,  cognition  arises  froip  his  special  theory  of  the  Real.  In  all 
ages  mystics  have  been  emphatic  in  denouncing  other  than 
mystical  means  of  communicating  with  God.  "Worship  is 
by  them  looked  upon,  not  as  one  of  many  legitimate  methods 
of  approaching  the  Absolute,  but  as  the  method.  But  reality, 
to  be  inaccessible  to  sense  and  reflection  alik'e,^  must  be  of 
a  certain  determinate  and  definite  character.  Because 
reality  is  known  or  postulated  to  be  alien  to  the  stufE  of 
which  sense  and  reflection  are  made,  sensible  and  reflective 
knowledge  are  stigmatized  as  invalid.  To  reject  these  forms 
of  cognition,  mysticism  must  Imow.  beforehand  the  sort  • 
of  reality  for  the  reach  of  which  they  prove  ineffectual.  To 
quote  Hocking,  "This  and  that,  he  [the  mystic]  says,  are 
not  God :  It  is  not  these  that  I  seek. ' '"  The  mystic  must 
,  then  know  what  he  seeks  in  order  to  identify  the  object  of 
•  his  search  when  he  has  found  it.  It  is  impossible  to  begin 
the  quest  without  in  some  measure  defining  both  the  object 
of  the  quest  and  the  direction  the  search  should  take.  And 
about  both  the  mystics  have  never  been  in  any  doubt. 
The  object  of  the  mystic's  search  is  perfectly  definite:  It 
is  That  Which  Is,  Pure  Being,  or  Ultimate  Reality.  Ulti- 
mate Reality,  however,  is  at  once  identified  with  the  Abso- 
lute, or  God ;  and  the  Absolute  or  God  is  further  identified 
with  the  One  and  "Whole,  Immutable  and  Perfect.  And 
because  sense  and  reflection  furnish  but  discrete  fragments  « 
and  bits  of  experience .  and  never  the  One  and  the  Whole, 
they  must  quite  consistently  be  di.scarded  as  guides  to  the 
Ultimate.  "V\^hat  they  give  is  nothing  but  appearances. « 
Ultimate  Reality  must  thus  be  looked  for  in  an  experience 
radically  different  from  and  other  than  sense  and  reflection. 
This  necessitates  an  elaborate  purging  from  sense  and  reflec- 
tion, and  when  this  is  accomplished  the  One  and  the  "Whole 


The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  p.  365. 


12 


stands  revealed  to  an   immediate,   unique,   and   ineffable 
experience. 

It  will  already  be  noted  that  the  mystic's  fundamental 
assumption — that  ultimate  reality  is  One  and  Whole  and 
that  this  One  and  Whole  must  be  of  a  spiritual  character 
in  order  to  be  discoverable  by  a  spiritual  experience — forms 

,  the  very  tenets  of  Absolute  Idealism.  Only  in  philosophic 
idealism  they  are  not  assumptions,  but  the  result  of  an 
elaborate  and  systematic  process  of  reflective  thought. 
Mysticism  must  begin  by  assuming  the  general  idealistic 
thesis  if  the  mystic  quest  have  any  meaning  at  all.  For 
the  mystic's  adventure  is  no  leap  into  the  Unknown,  he 
ventures  upon  no  strange   and  unmapped  seas;   far  too 

►  certain  is  he  even  of  his  landing  place — a  reality  which  is 
One  and  Whole  and  spiritual  revealahle  to  a  spiritual  ex- 
perience. To  be  sure,  his  successful  arrival — his  later  union 
with  the  Absolute — gives  '  pragmatic '  sanction  to  his  quest 
— his  idea  'worked' — but  it  is  impossible  to  grant  the  mystic 
a  legitimate  right  to  assume  the  essentially  idealistic  nature 
of  reality  ere  his  mystic  experience  has  disclosed  it  to  him 
— this  experience  being  the  only  certain  and  valid' test. 

Thus,  prior  to  those  practices  of  the  mystic  which  are 
to  terminate  in  a  luminous  vision  of  the  Real,  the  Real 
already  has  that  character  which  such  vision  alone  can 
confer  upon  it.  At  the  outset  of  the  mystic's  search  is  a 
theoretic  assumption — illegitimate  on  the  mystic's  own 
grounds-^-that  a  new  sort  of  knowledge  yet  to  be  won  will 
directly  reveal  a  definite  kind  of  reality.  All  knowledge 
other  than  tl^gjone  not  yet  attained,  however,  is  stigmatized 
by  him  as  invalid,  intact,  illusory.  The  knowledge,  then, 
which  directs  the  mystic's  quest,  the  knowledge  that  a 
definite  kind  of  reality  will  be  present  to  an  immediate  ex- 
perience must  itself  be  illusory.  And  yet  it  cannot  be  illu- 
sory, without  destroying  both  the  object  and  the  direction  of     , 

*  the  mystic  search.    Such  is  the  mystic  dilei  ma.    Thus,  the    , 

»  general  theory  of  Absolute  Idealism — formulated  and 
proved  by  means  of  the  circuitous  and  "illusory"  route 


13 


of  reflection — is  the  mystic's  necessary  presupposition,  a 
presupposition  assuming  certainty  for  him  only  after  he 
has  won  the  rare  and  difficult  experience  of  which  he  is 
in  quest.  Without  this  presupposition  the  whole  mystic 
enterprise  is  unintelligible,  not  only  to  us  but  to  himself. 
With  this  presupposition  the  mystic 's  ' '  adventure ' '  becomes 
full  of  meaning  and  significance.  But  the  mystic  is  in 
the  paradoxical  situation  of  the  queen  in  Alice  in  Wonder- 
land, who  at  the  well-known  trial-scene  commands,  "Sent- 
ence first — iVerdict  afterwards." 

With  the  mystic's  presupposition  of  the  nature  of 
reality  in  mind,  the  details  of  his  attempt  to  institute  an 
immediate  acquaintance  with  the  Absolute  become  intellig- 
ible. The  mystic's  approach  to  the  Reality  is  a  long 
pilgrimage  of  which  "union"  with  the  AlDSolute  is  the 
consummation.  A  process  of  complex  preparation  must  be 
initiated — an  active  and  strenuous  inward  pursuit — before 
that  complete  state  of  illumination  can  be  secured  in  which 
the  soul  of  the  mystic  is  immediately  aware  of  Absolute 
Truth.  This  process  of  preparation  is  of  an  intensely 
dramatic  character  and  is  usually  characterized  as  a  nega- 
tive way,  because  it  consists  in  first  detaching  oneself  from. 
things  finite,  from  the  objects  of  sense  and  reflection,  from 
the  whole  world  of  space  and  time.  "Into  this  house  (of 
his  innermost  self),"  says  Tauler,  "must  man  now  go  and 
completely  desist  from  and  abandon  his  sensations,  and  all 
sensible  things,  such  as  are  brought  into  the  soul  and 
perceived  by  the  senses  and  the  imagination.  And  he 
must  also  put  away  all  the  ideas  and  forms,  even  the  con- 
ceptions of  reason,  and  all  activity  of  his  own  reason.  "^- 
The  necessity  for  this  "essay  in  detachment" — to  use 
Hocking's  apt  phrase— is  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
mystic's  "theoretic"  assumption.  The  reality  which  the 
mystic  seeks  having  been  defined  as  absolutely  other  than 
the  objects  of  ViJ^se  and  reason,  tKe  road  to  it  must  indeed 
be  a  road  far  removed  from  these  cognitive  processes.    If, 


Quoted  by  Hocking,  ibid.,  p.  373. 


14 

as  the  mystic  believes,  sense  and  reflection  can  report  only 
isolated  facts  or  abstract  law,  transitory  states  or  tradi- 
tional concepts;  if  sense  and  reflection  can  never  reveal  a 
living  whole,  a  transcendent  unity,  an  immutable  spirit, 
what  can  the  mystic,  seeking  his  Absolute,  do  but  rid  him- 
self of  these  cognitive  impediments?  "He  who  believes 
that  'if  God  is  to  come  in,  the  creatures  must  go  out'  must 
make  his  drastic  choice,"  says  Hocking.^^  It  will  not  do 
to  contemplate  a  land  route  if  the  object  of  one's  desire  is 
located  on  a  "green  isle  in  the  sea"  or,  to  vary  the  meta- 
phor, it  is  absurd  to  consult  a  map  of  the  earth  if  what 
one  seeks  is  hidden  in  the  interior  of  a  different  planet. 
*The  mystic  sets  out  on  a  definite  voyage  in  pursuit  of  a 
♦definite  object.  He  knows  not  only  what  he  seeks,  but 
*he  knows  the  ways  which  lead  away  from  and  those  which 
lead  towards  it.  The  mystic's  preparation  is,  therefore, 
marke.d  by  a  characteristic  absence  from  wavering  and 
hesitancy.  Definite  as  the  object  of  his  quest,  is  his  pro- 
cedure in  initiating  and  completing  it.  The  ways  which 
lead  away  from  the  Absolute  the  mystic  knows  must  not 
be  trodden.  "The  darkness  of  the  cave  of  sense"  and  the 
"wilderness  of  intellectual  theories"^* — both  must  be 
shunned.  Thus,  the  via  negativa  or  the  ' '  purgative  stage ' ' 
in  the  traditional  mystical  ascent  is  not  only  consistent 
with,  but  is  an  inevitable  part  of,  the  mystic  "theory"  of 
the  Real. 

It  may  be  here  remarked,  in  passing,  that  the  via 
negativa  is  not  an  exclusively  mystic  road,  but  is  one  which 
not  only  idealism  but  all  philosophy  has  trodden.  From 
Thales  on,  philosophy  has  recognized  that  reality  is  not 
what  it  seems  and  it  does  not  seem  what  it  is,  and  that 
the  seeker  after  truth  must  first  purge  himself  from  the 
»  prejudices  and  errors  of  sense  and  common  sense  ere  he 
*can  hope  to  meditate  upon  the  eternal  verities.    The  paral- 

13  Ibid.,  p.  374. 

14  Koyee,  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  New  York,  1913,  vol.  II, 
p.  258. 


15 


lelism  between  the  stages  in  the  mystical  ascent  and  those 
of  philosophic  reflection  is  a  subject  worthy  of  a  detailed 
examination,  but  lack  of  space  forbids  more  than  a  mere 
mention  of  it.  Students  of  Descartes,  to  point  at  one  illust- 
ration, whose  philosophy  is  indeed  far  removed  from  mysti- 
cism, will  easily  distinguish  in  the  ' '  Cartesian  Ascent ' '  the 
'purgative,'  the  'meditative'  and  the  'illuminative'  or  the 
'intuitive'  phases.  And  to  Hegel's  vision,  to  name  an 
absolute  idealist,  there  leads  no  other  path  than  the  negative 
path.  His  Phenomenology  of  Spirit — called  by  Hegel  him- 
self his  ' '  Voyage  of  Discovery ' ' — consists  of  a  series  of 
progressive  purgations — necessary  rungs  on  the  ladder 
which  leads  up  to  his  own  philosophic  vision.  Indeed, 
without  intellectual  purgation  there  can  be  no  sound 
thinking. 

Thus  the  "purgative"  process  is  one  of  self-detach- 
ment from  what  the  mystic  knows  the  real  is  not.  Appear- 
ance and  reality  are  concepts' unhesitatingly  used  by  him 
to  designate  two  distinct  levels  of  existence,  from  the  first 
of  which  he  must  completely  divest  himself  if  he  is  ever 
to  reach  the  latter.  To  consider  farther  the  details  of  the 
"Mystic  Way"  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  this  paper.  It 
is  sufficient  to  add  that  upon  the  removal  of  the  appearances  • 
of  outer  sense  and  discursive  thought  there  follows  the 
phase  of  "meditation" — a  concentrated,  attentive  'gazing' 
upon  "the  divine  things  in  which  he  [the  mystic]  already 
believes,"  a  complete  abandonment  "to  the  contemplation 
of  them,"  and  the  attainment  of  "a  certain  inner  state  of 
delightful  contemplation,  while  conflict  and  complexity 
gives  way  to  peace.  "^^  This  is  preliminary  to  the  final, 
the  'illuminative'  or  'unitive'  stage — the  terminus  of  the 
mystic's  journey,  the  result  of  which  is  characterized  by 
Hocking  thus:  "The  mystic  has  been  knocking  at  the 
door  of  his  world,  an  outsider,  preparing  himself  inwardly 


15  J.    Eoyce,    "George    Fox    as    Mystic,"    Harvard    Theological 
Bevieiv,  vol.  VI,  January,  1913. 


and  outwardly ....  What  he  reports  is,  that  he  has  been 
admitted;  that  from  being  an  outsider,  knocking  at  the 
door  of  things,  he  has  ceased  to  be  an  outsider  and  a  sub- 
ordinate. He  uses  the  words  'illumination,'  'union,'  some- 
times 'deification,'  to  express  what  has  come  to  him.  In 
some  way  he  is  admitted  to  the  council  of  the  maker  of 
this  world  of  things.  He  has  become  an  understander  of 
the  heart  of  it.  And  in  evidence  of  his  truth  he  is  able  to, 
walk  about  among  things  and  men — do  we  say  an  alien? — 
on  the  contrary,  as  one  for  the  first  time  fully  present  and 
at  home,  able  to  recognize  himself  and  God  in  whatever 
declares  itself,  able  to  open  himself  to  the  whole  of  experi- 
ence.   This  is  what  the  mystic  reports.  "^^ 

Upon  the  psychological  nature  of  the  mystic  experience 
it  is  not  relevant  here  to  express  any  opinion.  Professor 
Hocking  has  dealt  with  it  lengthily  and  sympathetically  and 
has  tried  to  bring  it  "within  the  range  of  law."  For  the 
rhythm,  the  disconnection,  and  the  solitude  which  character- 
ize the  mystic  experience,  he  finds  numerous  analogies  in 
normal  mental  life.     From  the  epistemological  point  of 

•  view,  the  experience — whatever  its  psychology — can  mean 
'  nothing  more  than  a  peculiar  and  personal  verification  on 

•  the  mystic's  part  of  his  preconceived  "theory"  or  "hypo- 
thesis" of  the  Real.  He  reports  that  he  has  at  last  found 
what  he  has  set  out  to  find.    We  must  here  not  be  deterred 

^  by  the  mystic's  "negative"  narrative  of  his  pilgrimage. 
His  account  of  the  Absolute  as  "  an  undifferentiated  One, ' ' 
' '  the  Silent  desert  of  the  Godhead  where  no  one  is  at  home, ' ' 
"an  abysmal  Dark,"   "a  nameless  Nothing,"  is  a  mere 

'rhetorical  device.  These  expressions  connote  a  Being  whose, 
perfection,  whose  glory,  whose  finality,  no  particular  name 
can  denote.  "The  Absolute  is  the  very  opposite  of  a  mere 
nothing,"  says  Royce,  "for  it  is  fulfillment,  attainment, 
peace,  the  goal  of  life,  the  object  of  desire,  the  end  of 
knowledge  ....  The  light  above  the  light  is,  to  our  deluded 


16  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  pp. 


17 


vision,  darkness.  It  is  our  finite  realm  that  is  falsity,  the 
mere  nothing.     The  Absolute  is  All  Truth.  "^^ 

But  the  mystic  postulates  from  the  very  beginning  of 
his  quest  and  in  advance  of  that  ineffable  insight  which 
alone  constitutes  the  mystic  test  of  truth,  the  identity  of 
all  Truth  with  the  Absolute,  of  all  Reality  with  the  Perfect 
One,  of  all  That  Is  with  a  Divine  Being.  To  the  discovery 
and  attainment  of  such  an  assumed  identity,  the  mystic's 
life  of  worship  is  devoted.  Thus,  it  is  a  definite  "thesis" 
of  the  nature  of  reality  with  which  the  mystic  must  begin, 
and  as  the  ''proof"  of  such  thesis  he  offers  his  unique 
and  indescribable  experience.  But  until  this  peculiar  proof, 
the  "mystic  union,"  is  actually  achieved,  the  mystic  can- 
not escape  the  charge  of  entertaining  an  unverified  hypo- 
thesis of  the  Real,  an  hypothesis,  moreover,  because  it  is 
not  yet  verified  by  the  only  form  of  cognition  having 
validity,  must  be  looked  upon  as  being  on  a  par  with  all 
that  which  he  stigmatizes  as  "illusory."  Without  this 
particular  hypothesis,  however,  both  as  his  starting  point 
and  his  goal,  the  mystic  life  and  its  practices  are  robbed 
of  all  meaning  and  significance. 

A  certain  type  of  idealism,  then,  the  type  embodied  in 
the  doctrine  that  Reality  is  Absolute,  One,  Whole,  and 
Spirit,  accessible  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  is  implied 
in  the  mystic's  endeavor — nay,  in  a  sort  of  axiomatic 
fashion  is  deliberately  assumed  in  the  mystic's  practical 
and  meaningful  life  of  worship.  But  this  idealistic  doctrine, 
if  it  has  any  truth,  has  the  truth  which  the  labor  of  reflec- 
tion alone  can  sustain.  It  is  a  doctrine  which  means  to  be 
an  interpretation  of  the  universe  in  its  entirety  and  com- 
plexity, and  as  such  presupposes  a  complete  and  systematic 
and  critical  examination  of  the  problems  of  life  and  of 
the  world.  Its  method  is  reflective  and  argumentative,  i.e., 
it  consists  in  convincing  rationally  that  the  idealistic  inter- 
pretation can  most  successfully  cope  with  the  universal 


17  The  World  and  the  Individual,  vol.  I,  p.  171. 


18 

problems  of  life.  If  it  can  succeed  in  exhibiting  that  it 
alone  is  a  complete  and  coherent  and  self-consistent  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe,  then  and  only  then  may  idealism 
lay  claim  to  validity.     The  view  of  reality  assumed  by 

*  mysticism  is  a  result  of  articulate  and  elaborate  reflection, 
and  is  not  merely  a  point  of  departure. 
^  Absolute  Idealism,  with  the  general  thesis  of  which 
mysticism  begins,  permits  of  a  variety  of  formulation  and 
interpretation.  To  the  general  abstract  notion  that  Reality 
is  Absolute  and  One  and  Whole  and  spiritual,  knowable  to 
a  spiritual  insight,  aU  absolute  idealists  may  be  said  to 
subscribe,  but  they  will  not  agree  upon  the  kind  of  absolute- 
ness, unity,  wholeness,  and  spirituality  that  may  belong  to 
reality,  and  upon  the  ways  of  knowing  such  reality, 
ysticism,  however,  begins  and  ends  with  an  abstract  and 

«  vague  unity,  wholeness,  and  spirituality  of  its  Absolute. 
We  glean  from  the  mystic,  either  before  or  after  his  ' '  illum- 
ination," nothing  beyond  the  bare  fact  that  the  Absolute 
somehow  is  One,  is  All,  is  Perfection.  In  what  does  the 
absoluteness  of  reality  consist?  Hoiv  is  the  unity  of  the 
world  to  be  interpreted  ?  What  is  the  nature  of  its  whole- 
ness? What  constitutes  its  spirituality?  How  must  one 
conceive  of  its  infinity  and  perfection?  Why,  if  reality  is 
absolute,  one,  and  whole,  and  spirit,  does  it  present  con- 
tradictory and  discrepant  features?  With  these,  and  with 
countless  other  questions,  philosophic  idealism  seeks  to 
grapple.  For  the  mystic  who  either  still  seeks  or  who 
has  already  found  absolute  reality,  these  questions  do  not 

'   exist,  because  he  does  not  ask  them,  and  in  ignoring  these 

,  questions  the  mystic  is,  from  his  point  of  view,  again  quite 
consistent.  When  one  is  yearning  to  be  united  with  a 
lovable  and  living  reality,  when  one  hopes  and  somehow 
knows  that  in  such  a  union  all  will  be  well,  when  the 
fading  away  of  the  "doubter  and  the  doubt"  constitutes 
the  solution  of  all  problems,  it  is  ill  to  prolong  the  agony 
of  thinking,  escape  from  which  is  the  mystic's  supreme 
attempt.     "He  wishes   to   be,   rather  than   to   think,"   is 


19 


Hocking 's  characterization  of  the  typical  mystic 's  attitude. 
But  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  travail  of  the  ages,  the 
united  and  sustained  philosophic  effort  of  the  centuries, 
may  be  required  to  disclose  the  wealth  and  the  depth  and 
the  complexity  of  the  questions  which  mysticism  ignores  and 
which  its  "theory"  of  the  real  assumed  in  its  practice 
persistently  invites. 

If  the  view  of  mysticism  here  developed  be  at  all  correct, 
the  objects  of  the  mystic  quest  must  be  held  to  be  identical 
with  that  form  of  reality  which  is  the  reflective  outcome 
of  many  types  of  absolute  idealism.  Only,  in  the  latter  the 
outcome  is  not  assumed,  as  it  is  in  mysticism,  at  the  begin- 
ning, but  is  the  result  of  a  rational  attempt  to  interpret 
the  world  in  its  totality  and  complexity.  The  proof  of  such 
interpretation  does  not  depend  upon  a  knowledge  wholly 
unique,  exclusive,  and  ineffable,  but  upon  a  knowledge 
which  is  both  articulate  and  demonstrable.  The  mystics, 
together  with  other  anti-intellectualists,  appear  to  identify 
reason  or  reflection  with  the  power  of  forming  abstract 
ideas  or  with  the  process  of  framing  definitions,  making 
divisions,  classifications,  and  generalizations.  Reason  for 
them  is  essentially  artificial  and  analytical,  working  piece- 
meal, obtaining  but  bits  and  fragments.  "To  understand 
life  by  concepts,"  says  William  James,  "is  to  arrest  its 
movement,  cutting  it  up  into  bits,  as  if  with  scissors,  and 
immobilizing  these  in  our  logical  herbarium  [where  they  are 
kept]  as  dried  specimens."^®  Evelyn  Underbill,  voicing  the 
mystic  protest  against  intellectualism,  rejects  an  intellec- 
tualistic  Absolute  as  "  a  meaningless  diagram,  a  superfluous 
complication  of  thought.  Every  effort  made  by  philosophy 
to  go  forth  in  search  of  it  is  merely  the  metaphysical 
squirrel  running  round  the  conceptual  cage."^^  But  the 
function  of  anaylsis  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  complex  life 
of  thought.  Thought  appears  in  its  most  significant  work 
as    synthetic,    constructive,    inventive.      In    its    synthetic 


18  Pluralistic  Universe,  New  York,  1909,  p.  244. 

19  Mysticism,  p.  16. 


capacity,  thought  has  to  do,  not  with  parts  but  with  wholes, 

•  not  with  dividing  but  with  unifying,  not  with  definition 

•  but  with  insight.  Ever  since  Plato,  the  distinction  between 
thought  as  analytical  and  thought  as  synthetic  has  been 
emphasized,  and  in  Kant,  but  more  particularly  in  his 
followers,  the  term  "understanding"  is  employed  for  the 
former,  while  the  latter  alone  is  the  principal  function  of 
"reason."  This  technical  matter  can  not  be  here  pursued 
further.  It  is  pertinent  only  to  call  attention  to  a  different 
view  of  the  nature  of  reason,  which,  if  true,  would  remove 
in  a  large  measure  the  mystic's  objection  to  philosophic 
idealism.  For  reason,  too,  can  have  'visions,'  'insights,' 
'intuitions.'  And  one  may  add  that  to  this  function  of 
reason  is  due  all  constructive  work  of  science.  Science  is 
not  a  matter  merely  of  analysis,  classification,  and  abstrac- 
tion. It  is  to  the  intuitive  or  imaginative  mind  of  the 
scientist  that  we  owe  the  invention  of  successful  hypotheses 
and  the  discovery  of  scientific  laws.  Science  and  philos- 
ophy alike  depend  upon  synthetic  insights  and  intuitive 
visions.  "Reason,"  as  Royce  says,  "means  simply  broader 
intuition,  the  sort  of  seeing  that  grasps  many  views  in  one, 
that  surveys  life  as  it  were  from  above,  tliat  sees,  as  the 
wanderer  views  the  larger  landscape  from  a  mountain- 
top."-" 

A  ' '  vision ' '  of  reality  is  thus  not  the  exclusive  preroga- 
tive  of  the  mystic.     Vision  of  an  intellectual  sort  is  a  • 
philosophic  attitude  par  excellence.    If  philosophy  is  taken 

■  to  mean  a  science  or  an  art  of  interpretation  and  apprecia- 
tion, and  not  merely  one  of  description  and  classification, 
can  it  be  aught  else  than  an  expression  of  vision?  In  the 
matter  of  vision,  metaphysics  allies  itself  with  poetry  or 
with  art  in  general,  rather  than  with  the  positive  or  natural 
/Sciences.     To  both  the  poet  and  the  metaphysician  reality 

'-•  throws  out  but  dim  suggestions  which  they  have  a  right  t 
to  interpret.     The  meaning  of  interpretation  is  nothing 
else  than  the  ability  to  see  far  beyond  or  behind  these 

20  The  Sources  of  Beligious  Insight,  New  York,  1912,  p.  86. 


21 

suggestions.  True,  the  poet  and  the  metaphysician  employ- 
different  methods  in  interpreting  the  suggestions  which 
reality  hints  to  them.  But  the  right  and  the  will  to  inter- 
pret is  grounded  in  both  cases  on  a  vision.  Whence,  then, 
the  deeper  reality  or  meaning  of  things?  Whence  the 
search  or  quest  for  a  deeper  reality  or  meaning?  This 
very  search  is  grounded  upon  a  particular  vision  or  inner 
experience — neither  mystical  nor  mysterious — which  must 
come  to  every  philosopher.  This  vision  is  the  first  and 
primary  condition  of  every  philosophy.  This  simply  means 
that  the  philosopher  or  poet  "sees"  things  in  a  way  dif- 
ferent from  common  sense.  On  account  of  such  a  vision, 
Thales,  I  fancy,  is  entitled  to  be  called  the  Father  of 
Philosophy;  he  asked  questions  about  the  universe  which 
nobody  before  him  thought  of  asking.  He  had  a  vision 
that  the  world  was  not  what  it  appeared  to  him. 
It  is  in  such  a  general  sense  that  we  may  also  speak  o^ 
'metaphysical  imagination,'  but  there  is  nothing  exclusiye 
about  it,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  indeed  true  that  any  or 
anybody's  philosophy  is  due  to  a  vision.  Which  and 
whose  vision  is  the  right  or  the  true  vision  is,  of  course, 
a  different  question,  to  be  decided  on  different  gr^ads^.^^J^j^ 
This  interpretation  of  a  philosophic  vision  not  in  op-  s^^)^^ 
position  to  reason,  but  being  the  very  life  of  reason,  would  ^.  q^^^ 
apply  to  mysticism  as  well.  The  whole-idea  with  which  the  •  r'^rp 
mystic  begins  his  quest,  without  which,  as  has  been  shown, 
the  entire  mystic  enterprise  would  be  meaningless,  the 
initiation,  rather  than  the  completion,  of  the  "Mystic  * 
Way,"  constitutes  his  really  philosophic  vision.  Vague 
and  abstract,  to  be  sure,  is  this  vision,  but  it  is  perfectly 
determinate.  For  the  mystic,  it  will  be  remembered,  does 
not  set  out  to  seek  for  an  indefinite  somewhat.  His  object 
is  clearly  defined :  a  Reality,  One  and  Absolute  and  Spirit- 
fl  ual,  discoverable  by  a  spiritual  seeker.  He  in  a  measure  \/ 
already  possesses  that  which  he  seeks.  His  quest  is  a  quest 
for  verification  of  a  definite  hypothesis.  It  is  the  intellect- 
ual  hypothesis — the    non-mystical    starting    point    of    the 


/; 


mystic — and  not  its  ineffable  esoteric  and  purely  personal 
verification  which  is  a  vision  possessing  genuine  philosophic 
significance. 

And  because  the  mystic  has  this  whole-idea,  because  he 
begins  with  this  intellectual  vision  for  which  he  seeks  non- 
intellectual  confirmation,  because  his  starting  point  is  an 
idealistic  hypothesis,  mysticism  will  always  demand  philo- 
•^ojghic__attention.  Mysticism  cannot  articulate  what  it 
finds,  but  what  it  seeks  is  a  verification  of  a  determinate 
hypothesis  which  it  has  in  common  with  philosophic  ideal- 
ism. Both  the  idealist  and  the  mystic  share  in  the  same 
implicit  doctrine,  but  while  the  mystic  vanishes  from  a 
definite  relatively  exoteric  hypothesis  into  an  ineffable 
esoteric  immediacy,  the  idealist  progresses  to  a  mediate 
explicit  interpretation  of  the  universe.  The  difference 
between  them  may  well  be  illustrated  by  the  story  of  a 
French  professor  who,  at  the  opening  of  a  course  in  meta- 
physics, summed  up  his  whole  philosophic  doctrine  by 
means  of  three  gestures.  He  said  "L'Idealisme,"  raising 
his  hand  towards  heaven,  ' '  Le  Materialisme, ' '  pointing  his 
finger  downward,  and  ' '  Le  Spiritualisme, ' '  pressing  his 
hand  to  his  heart.  "These  gestures,"  he  continued,  "con- 
tain my  whole  metaphysical  system,  but  it  will  require  more 
than  one  year  to  develop  their  profound  meaning,  to  under- 
stand the  wealth  of  their  implications,  and  to  justify  the 
theory  of  the  universe  they  express."  In  relation  to 
philosophic  idealism,  we  may  conclude,  mysticism  remains 
but  an  inarticulate  hint,  a  subtle  shrug,  a  silent  gesture, 
whose  full  and  deep  meaning  and  whose  vast  and  rich 
significance  the  intellectual  travail  of  generations  of  men 
cannot  completely  exhaust. 


TTF 


AT^ 


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